23 February 2020

There is – there must  be – something quite wrong with my watch. Our days together have sped by – seemingly only minutes. Did we not just gather at the foot of the stairs, cross the dark threshold into the great Hall? Did we not just light our candles? And now … now we must part for another year.

Except we don’t, do we? We are fast-bound to one another. Distance means little, for we’re never really all that far from those we love and miss.

Someone told me that once, not so very long ago really, yet it feels as if I’ve always know it as truth.

Still, this is a kind of farewell, and I want to leave you with something, some words of wisdom if I can muster them, an encouragement warm enough  to carry you through the coldest, darkest nights, something to give you hope. So … in these last quiet moments, thinking, then thinking more … I’ve come to this:

Give yourself to love. Open up your hearts, In a stranger see a friend, see family. Be the force that quells another’s loneliness. Be someone’s help in hard times. I promise – all this good, this kindness, will come back to you.

Here below, love has made a circle that holds us all inside. But its sanctuary lasts not just for these nine days. We’re changed by it, made more … ourselves, so we must take its protection, its fire, its teaching above, out and into a world that needs and deserves what we  enjoy.

You’ll do that; I know you will. I know you have.

Sigh.

The tunnels grow still. Your laughter trills faintly away as you climb the steep stone steps, and a part of me wants to run after you, entreating … Take me with you when you go.

But , of course … you do.

Until we’re together once again,
With love,

Father